Friends in Need When Nature Hiccups, Natural Disasters forum Options

[Astro0]

Seen elsewhere on the interweb, but I thought may be of interest here.
The recent Station Fire behind JPL - beautiful and really scary at the same time.


I hope that Mt Wilson will be OK.
We lost Mt Stromlo in Canberra back in 2003 and I still feel sick in the stomach everytime I go up there.
Lots of rebuilding since then but the history that was lost was just devastating.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Although the TV news showed aerial images with smoke very close to the 100 inch dome, good news prevailed;
http://palomarskies.blogspot.com/

[RoverDriver]

Cough, cough, cough...

The Station Fire is still burning, but AFAIK noone in MER (or JPL) had any damage or injury. Maybe you have already seen this time-lapse video of JPL shot last Fri/Sat http://vimeo.com/6325431. JPL is the complex of white buildings in the lower right. In this video my house is outside the frame to the left. The fire got quite close to JPL. I left late on Friday and the view was quite impressive. The lab was closed on Monday except for essential personnel.

The fire got to within 100' of my property line where I have tall trees. I left my house when I saw that the hill in front of my house was on fire. There are lots of tall trees around my house and was sure I would have lost it in the fire. I packed quickly, took my pictures, documents, my backup hard drive, my kids drawings but had forgotten to take my record collection that I have since high school. On Sunday morning I was allowed to walk up the hill in Briggs Terrace to fetch more things. I left my record collection but took my signed copies of Squires and Jim Bell's books. Priorities!

As a side note, I had left my mail and web server at home on during the fire and periodically was pinging the server to see if my house was still there. Needless to say my server responded every time.

I was able to return home on Tuesday evening and I was amazed to see that in spite of the fire getting close, nothing got damages or burned. Everything was covered in ash and soot, the air quite unbreathable, but I was amazed at what the firefighters were able to do. Things are getting back to normal. Got the house and back yard cleaned up. I still need to repair the pool pump and clean up the pool (forgot to turn off the pool pump). My kids were happy: watching cartoons on TV, playing on their laptops, and school was closed!

Sharon, rover driver Frank and TAP/SIE Linda were quite close as well, and had to evacuate as well. Scott lives in Pasadena, far enough not to be evacuated.

Paolo

Added a picture I took last Friday 8/28 at around noon.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[elakdawalla]

Agreed, the precision and professionalism of the firefighters who protect property during California's wildfires is awe-inspiring every year.

Scary how close it got to you Paolo -- I'm happy that all ended well! It's good to hear from you after a long hiatus in posting to UMSF.

--Emily

[mcaplinger]

Agreed, the precision and professionalism of the firefighters who protect property during California's wildfires is awe-inspiring every year.

Perhaps slightly less awe-inspiring in 2003 when every house in my neighborhood in suburban San Diego was burned to the ground, and CDF refused to allow the Navy to drop on it.

I'm certainly glad the outcome in Pasadena was better.

[Tesheiner]

It was a close call. Glad to hear from you and that everything is ok.

The closest I got to a situation like that was on the beginning of July when a fire started on a large field right behind my back yard almost at midnight; it was a local holiday at the neighborhood and the fire started due to some fireworks. It expanded very quickly but fortunately the wind was not going in our direction but to the left and the firefighters came in less then 10min. The fire got to about 100m of my fence.
If the wind would have been in our direction I would certainly had to wake up the kids and left them with our neighbors at the other side of the street.

[climber]

I still need to repair the pool pump and clean up the pool (forgot to turn off the pool pump).

Dear Paolo,

I had a stop over at LAX at 5 am last thursday and couldn't see any fire from the plane. Strange.
Regarding cleaning the pool, you may want to free Spirit first so you'll have plenty of "cleaner" available at work.
Glad I can write some humour now that the situation has improved.

[nprev]

The smoke blanket was extremely thick, Climber; in fact, it was so thick that it often looked like a large cumulus (nearly cumulo-nimbus, in fact) cloud formation from the LAX area & southward.

Paolo--great news!!! Welcome back, brother, and great to hear that all the other MER gurus @ JPL are also in good shape!

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Indeed good news... LA Times wrote;
http://joy.chara.gsu.edu/CHARA/Slides/Rutten.pdf
Thanks to these guys;
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-fire3-20...0,2110651.story

[ElkGroveDan]

Everything was covered in ash and soot,

Have you thought about shoveling some of that up and trying it in the testbed?

[Stu]

In case anyone was wondering if I'm okay, as the raging floodwaters close in over Cumbria, after 3 days of non-stop rain, yes, I'm fine, thanks! Kendal where I live is relatively untouched - flooding in some low-lying areas, river horrendously swollen and lapping at its banks, but no major damage. Unlike where my mother lives, up in Cockermouth. There the town centre is under several feet of water, and RAF helicopters are airlifting people out of houses as boats go up and down the Main Street...

I was in Penrith all day, one of the speakers at a training day for local Council people, hoping to make them aware of the problems of light pollution. The plan was to end the day with a coach trip to Kewsick - but seeing as Keswick is now eligible to be twinned with Atlantis, that didn't happen.

Very difficult times up here in the Lake District. We've got off very lightly here in Kendal.

[Astro0]

Stay dry mate.
The exact opposite here in Australia. Another big dust storm over the last few days and the the hottest November tempeatures on record! 35-40C+ for 13 days straight in some places.

[dmuller]

... add to that the 'catastrophic bush fire alert' in 3 states today. There's a fire going about 50 kms from the Narrabri Australia Telescope but it's not under threat.

[Stu]

Some pics of Kendal tonight... http://www.flickr.com/photos/38065120@N04/...157622713631821

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Things are looking pretty serious in parts of Cumbria - seems we may have a record breaking one day rainfall event - possibly approaching 300mm. With even more to come too.